Throughout the years I have asked myself many times do I have mental ill health – and each time, the answer is yes. The truth is our mental health ebbs and flows to the rhythm of life and the constant change that is a part of it.
For me, big life events like a company restructuring, saving money, buying my first property, being a carer for elderly, ill parents, a challenging working environment, and being a working parent, all impacted my mental health.
This is why, depending on where we are in life, we can be anywhere on the mental health continuum or sliding scale – from healthy to ill.
What I have learned each time is the importance of acknowledging I am mentally exhausted, need support, can overcome it with support, and seek the right kind of help.
What is mental health?
Mental health can be defined as an individual’s ability to realise their own abilities, cope with the normal stresses of everyday life, work productively and fruitfully, and build good relationships to contribute to their community.
Mental ill health, on the other hand, is when a variety of mental health conditions affect an individual’s mood, thinking, and/or behaviour. This, in turn, can prevent someone from realising their own abilities in a learning environment or in their professional/personal life.
It can make coping with the normal stresses of everyday life very difficult or impossible, including working or studying unproductively and not being able to establish and build good relationships to contribute to their community.
The mental health continuum & sliding scale
On the healthy end, our mental health is healthy and allows us to deal with everyday stresses.
At the reacting stage, we are experiencing temporary and reversible mental ill health, such as bereavement grief and/or working in a toxic and stressful environment with little or no support from our manager.
At the injured stage, a single event or a series of events impacting us significantly negatively will lead to severe anxiety, depression, or withdrawal from society, rendering it impossible for us to deal with the ups and downs of everyday life. Events tend to include things like redundancy, unfair dismissal, being made homeless, domestic violence, long-term health issues, alcohol/drug use, divorce, and more.
Types of mental health conditions along the spectrum and how we are affected
Stress – temporarily, this is not serious. But, continuous stress can affect our emotions, behaviour, ability to think, and our physical well-being, like increased blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, and insomnia.
Anxiety – is usually a response to stress that continues after the stress has been resolved. However, it can also be short-lived. For example, anxiety can peak before and during a job interview. Anxiety becomes problematic when a situation becomes long-term, continuously overwhelming, and interferes with everyday life. Physical symptoms often include worrying thoughts, panic attacks, faster heartbeat, dizziness, nausea, and/or laboured breathing.
Depression – is a medical condition that can affect many people and varies from person to person. A doctor will only diagnose depression if a specific combination of signs and symptoms persists for at least two weeks.
- Mood: Persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, emptiness, hopelessness, or pessimism
- Emotions: Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness, irritability, frustration, or restlessness
- Motivation: Loss of interest or pleasure in activities, or lack of motivation
- Cognitive: Difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions
- Sleep: Difficulty sleeping, waking up too early, or oversleeping
- Appetite: Changes in appetite or unplanned weight changes
- Other: Fatigue, lack of energy, or feeling slowed down, unexplained physical problems like headaches or back pain, or suicidal thoughts
Self-harm – is often used to relieve distressing feelings and help someone cope with difficulties in life. Self-harm can be physical and/or behavioural with examples like physical cutting, burning, skin-picking skin, and behaviours like excessive drinking, fast driving, having unprotected sex, gambling, and/or causing fights.
Eating disorders – a type of obsessive behaviour relating to eating and the consumption of food and drink usually include anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. Although often blamed on a desire to lose weight, such types of obsession may instead be the response to traumatic events, stress, and unhappiness in the life of the person living with the disorder. Anxiety and low self-esteem can also trigger eating disorders, which are a way for an individual to control their life and manage the stress they’re experiencing.
Suicide – is the intentional cause of one’s own death and can be the last resort for someone experiencing a combination of traumas, stresses, anxieties, and depressive states in life. Such events could include poor living conditions, trauma, and/or substance abuse. Evidence suggests if someone can be prevented from suicide, they can often be supported to move away from suicidal thoughts and recover.
Factors and triggers that increase the risk of mental ill health
Factors inside the work or learning environment – like poor communication lines, management, and pastoral care contribute to increased mental health problems. Equally, high and unrelenting workloads, inflexible working hours, and limited training and progression opportunities can trigger mental ill health.
Triggers outside the work or learning environment – like an individual’s home life, a family breakdown, moving homes, substance abuse, and having insecurities and low self-esteem can bring on stress, anxiety, and mental ill health.
Temporary factors – are reversible and affect us only for a short time. Examples include changing jobs, a short-term disagreement or argument with friends and/or family, a short-term illness or incident involving a family member, or the death of someone close or separation or divorce from a partner or spouse. Once these temporary factors are resolved and time has passed, so too does our mental ill health.
Long-term factors – happen over time and are harder to overcome to reverse the effects of mental ill health. Causes include homelessness, poor housing with a lack of safety and security, and physical, and long-term health issues and conditions. Diabetes, for example, coupled with a range of health complications, like painful arthritis, or a disability results in one being less mobile and possibly becoming and feeling isolated.
Longer-term health conditions impact mood, thinking, and behaviour negatively. It also makes it difficult for the person living with these conditions to live a normal life and cope with everyday stresses and challenges. Ensuring these are managed by a professional through a bespoke treatment plan will improve one’s physical health and, therefore, mental health. With chronic conditions managed well, it becomes possible to live a more normal and easier life to cope with everyday stresses and challenges.
Boosting our mental health by increasing physical activity.
The link between doing physical activities and improving mental health is well documented. Many research studies show we can look after our mental health by caring for our mind-body system, and people who feel well physically cope better with the strains and stresses of everyday life. It has to do with the serotonin levels in our system – the more we release (through activities), the better we feel.
- Physical activities and being outdoors, connecting with nature
- Leading a healthier lifestyle by reducing alcohol intake and avoiding smoking and drug-taking
- Resting and sleeping to repair the body and boost memory, combat irritability, anxiety, and depression.
- Increasing nutritional intake by maintaining a balanced diet with a well-rounded intake of protein, vitamins, and minerals to protect and enhance our physical and mental health.
- Communicating better, listening actively, and having those difficult conversations to help us offload and feel supported so we don’t feel so alone.
- Building positive relationships grounded in trust, patience, and empathy to ensure we don’t suffer in silence, take the right steps to seek support, and get the right help from managers, workplace mentors, and first aid/welfare colleagues.
- Practicing mindfulness and exercising some tried and tested coping mechanisms.
Support
At the workplace and/or learning environment, policies are in place for line managers, mentors, tutors, first aiders, welfare staff, and ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) to support individuals experiencing mental ill health. Therefore, we should feel comfortable talking to them confidentially and seeking professional support. It will make life easier and more manageable in and outside the work and learning environment.
In the short term – you can get help with prioritising or reducing workloads, getting extra rest breaks, longer lunch breaks for walks outside, private one-on-one time with a trained first aid/welfare staff, and accessing other support networks, groups, and provisions.
In the long term – you may get some time off, especially if it is recommended by a health professional like occupational health or a doctor. However, the first step is to communicate with the right people at work and/or your learning environment to ensure you share your concerns and worries with them and ask for help.
Whether you require short or long term support, having a Wellness Action Plan at work or your learning environment will help you care for your mental health.
